Around the Mediverse: August 18, 2010

What with this whole commencement of medical school, it’s been a while since the last edition. So I bring you slightly more than usual

Fun tidbits, health-related and otherwise, from around the ‘tubes:

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative reminds us that counterintuitive though it may be, there is an optimal amount of forgetting. Dr. Bob Centor suggests that proposed performance payment for physicians forgets the role of patient preferences in steering therapy. Sticking with patient preferences, twoposts at KevinMD argue that the long-term viability and feasibility of the PCMH care model should be determined by patient desires. That is, if the PCMH model is workable to begin with… an arguable proposition. Of course, if recent trends with retail clinics are any indicator… well, it could indicate many things. You be the judge.

End-of-life spending has gotten some attention. The DMCB and Health Affairs alike aren’t convinced that reducing this spending will be easy, or that the savings are in fact possible to realize, at least as conventionally measure. Relatedly, a guest poster at KevinMD points out that in medicine, sometimes “more is more.” Not all potential cost-savings are “free lunches.”

Rounding out this week’s edition… Medical schools, broadly speaking, do three things. They educate physicians, produce research, and care for patients. As someone just starting medical school, it’s nice to read things like this post from Dr. Centor arguing that the primary mission of medical schools should in fact be medical education.